Crying at ads, snapping at everyone: the mood rollercoaster explained

Weeping at a phone commercial, then furious at the traffic, then flat by dinner. If your emotions have a mind of their own lately, there’s a reason.

By Kristy Vardanega  ·  Reviewed by Dr Kelly Needham, Women’s Health Doctor  ·  Updated 17 June 2026

You cried at an insurance ad. The one with the dog. You weren’t even sad, exactly — it just came up, fast and uninvited. By lunch you’d snapped at a colleague over nothing, and by the evening you felt strangely empty, watching telly without really being there. Three completely different women in one day, and you were all of them.

If your emotional weather has turned unpredictable — sunny to storm to fog in the space of an afternoon — you’re not unstable, and you’re not “too much.” This could be the perimenopause mood rollercoaster, and it’s one of the most common experiences of this stage.

Why your emotions stopped being steady

For most of your adult life, your hormones followed a rhythm. It was a known cycle — predictable enough that your moods, even the premenstrual ones, came on a roughly familiar schedule.

Perimenopause tears up the timetable. Oestrogen stops moving in tidy waves and starts lurching — surging high one week, dropping low the next, with no pattern you can plan around. Because oestrogen helps regulate serotonin and dopamine (the chemicals behind a steady mood), your feelings start tracking those lurches. High oestrogen, low oestrogen, repeat — and your emotional baseline goes up and down with it like a cork on choppy water.

Meanwhile progesterone, your natural calming hormone, is falling away, taking some of your built-in steadiness with it. So you’ve got bigger swings and less buffer to absorb them. That’s the whole machine behind the whiplash: weepy, then white-hot, then flat, sometimes within hours.

Three completely different women in one day, and you were all of them.

Many women describe it as the worst PMS of their life, except unmoored from any clear point in the month — and that’s not far off the mark. Around four in ten women get these PMS-like mood symptoms during the transition. It’s common, it’s hormonal, and it is absolutely not you “losing it.”

The bit that makes it harder

Because the swings don’t line up with a neat monthly date anymore, they’re easy to misread — as a relationship problem, a work problem, a you problem. You start wondering if you’ve become difficult, or fragile, or both. You apologise a lot. You brace for your own reactions.

Naming a possible hormonal cause doesn’t make the feelings fake — they’re completely real. But it does take the self-blame out of them. If hormones are part of what’s going on, this is a phase in your chemistry, not a flaw in your character.

What actually helps

1. Track your moods for a few weeks. Even a one-word note a day. Patterns that feel random often aren’t — and seeing the shape of it is steadying in itself, as well as being exactly the evidence a good GP wants.
2. Treat the basics as non-negotiable. Sleep, movement, food, daylight. They sound boring next to a hormone storm, but a rested, well-fed nervous system rides the swings far better than a depleted one. Broken sleep alone will amplify every dip.
3. Notice your accelerants. Alcohol and caffeine both tend to sharpen the swings — worth watching whether your roughest days follow the big nights or the strong coffees.
4. Build in a pause. A few slow breaths, a walk around the block, stepping out of the room before you respond. You’re not suppressing the feeling — you’re giving the surge a moment to pass before you act on it.
5. Let your people in. A simple “my hormones are all over the place right now and I’m sorting it out” gives the people you love the context to meet you with patience instead of confusion.

When it’s more than the rollercoaster

There’s a difference between swinging and sinking. If the low days start outnumbering the rest, if the flatness settles in and won’t lift, or if you’ve lost interest in things that used to matter, that’s worth a proper conversation — perimenopause genuinely raises the risk of depression, even for women who’ve never experienced it. Take it to a GP with an interest in menopause, bring your tracker, and say plainly that you think your hormones are involved. Ask for a symptom-based assessment; a single “normal” blood test doesn’t rule perimenopause out, because your levels are swinging from day to day.

This isn’t a diagnosis — it’s a starting point. But the headline is worth holding onto: you are not unstable, and you are not losing yourself. You’re a woman whose hormones have gone off-script for a while, and the swings do settle. Track what you’re feeling, look after the basics, and take it to someone who’ll listen.

You’re not imagining it. And you’re not alone.

This article is general information, not medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional about your specific situation. Reviewed by Dr Kelly Needham, Women’s Health Doctor, on 17 June 2026. If you’re really struggling, or you ever feel unsafe, please talk to your GP or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Sources

1. Australasian Menopause Society — Mood and the Menopause
2. Jean Hailes for Women’s Health — Menopause and mind health